Industrial Hemp: It’s not Pot
Did you know that Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper? Did you know that hemp is one of the most ecologically friendly and versatile resources and make everything from fuel to carpet? And did you know that industrial hemp is not...
Activism and Art
I'd like to point out two notable events in the world of activist art: the current bicentenary of Mr. Charles Dickens and the first exhibition in North America of the works of Chinese Painter Xu Beihong. Two hundred years since the great English writer's birth and...
See the Singular Beauty
"Borrrrring," moaned the young boy as he exited the Robert Adams photography exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. The temporary collection, titled The Place We Live, is a retrospective of Adams' portfolio on the American West, and Adams is not a photographer set on...
Tweeting Teaches Brevity, So Omit the Redundancies Already!
So much repetitiveness, so little space. We can thank Twitter for one thing – it's promoting brevity in writing (actually, there are loads of reasons to love Twitter, but I'm particularly fond of this one). Our language is laden with space-hogging phrases,...
The Bones of Literature
It probably won't make national headlines--anywhere--but an 18th-century London workhouse has been salvaged from the wrecking ball and, possibly worse, the redecorators of luxury condos. I thrilled to read Judith Flanders' posting on this. (And, Ms. Flanders,...
Language “Lossiness”
In today's environment of communication orgies, when we're called to dance naked in the social media, when whisps of 140-character dialogue have us all a twitter, it borders on science fiction to hear of someone taking the bulk of her 80-plus years of life to...